Chapter 167 Zhuangmo (a type of steamed bun) and Bazirou (braised pork) [First Update]
If there's anything different about being a soon-to-be senior in high school, it's that we eat earlier every day and have an extra evening study session.
Han Lulu lay on the table, utterly dejected: "I heard this is only temporary, and the time will be extended again in September."
Just thinking about it is painful.
A countdown timer has appeared next to the blackboard in the classroom, with the cruel 362 days written on it.
Teachers of all subjects put in a lot of effort to assign homework, filling everyone's after-school time to the brim.
Just when Wen's mother thought her daughter would close her private kitchen for a year, Wen Fan took the initiative to ask her what time the guests would arrive the next day on Friday night.
Mrs. Wen frowned: "Given the situation, you should rest well this weekend."
Wen Fan shook his head.
The pressure of her senior year of high school was one aspect, but she needed something she was good at that could give her a sense of certainty as a support.
However, at Wen's mother's insistence, the private kitchen meals were reduced by one day each week, with only three tables served on Saturday nights.
After Wenji released the news, the customers who were still waiting in line were filled with despair.
[Soaring into the Sky: When I called last time, the boss said the wait was already two months, but now they're saying it'll be postponed... When will I ever get to eat here?]
[Astronaut: Sigh, I've been looking forward to this for so long. What I miss most now is the end of last year, when it was either a tofu feast or a pig-slaughtering feast every day, it was so delicious.]
[Huhu: You've reminded me! I've had this question for a while now: why does Wen Ji only offer its private kitchen dishes on weekends and holidays?]
[Cream puff: What else could it be? It's crowded on weekends and holidays, of course.]
[Yun Qing: That's as if they don't have many people at home usually. Besides, even if they have a lot of people, they only have three tables a day on weekends. What difference does it make how many people are seated outside?]
[Puff: ...That makes sense. So why is that?]
[HuHu: I have a guess. Maybe the head chef of Wen Ji is a retired master chef. Master chefs are usually quite arrogant, so they don't like to show their faces usually and only come to cook three tables on weekends.]
This speculation instantly sparked a wave of responses, and the more people mentioned it, the more people believed it.
Du Min found these comments amusing and showed them to Wen Fan.
Wen Fan glanced at him quickly, thinking to himself that this person had guessed half of it.
Isn't she practically retired from the martial arts world now?
Wen Fan, who has "retired from the martial arts world," is currently making meat pies.
The dough is rolled out so much that it almost covers the entire countertop. The prepared meat filling is then evenly placed on the large, thick dough.
The filling is made with beef, chopped onions, and a little egg. Finally, a layer of soaked and chopped rice noodles is placed on top. These rice noodles were recently delivered by Feng Huijuan. They are made from sweet potato starch and, after drying, are large, translucent, brownish-yellow round sheets. After being soaked, they become chewy and can be chopped and added to the meat filling, or layered on top after the meat filling.
The dough is folded up and then rolled out with a rolling pin to make a thick meat pie that looks huge even when placed in the pan.
Once both sides were golden brown, Wen Fan took out a knife and cut it.
Extensive meat juices eagerly flowed from the cut, turning the onion almost translucent, indistinguishable from the equally translucent rice paper. Inside the crispy, golden crust was a generous, finger-thick layer of meat filling, plump and satisfying. Wen Fan shared a piece with Du Min; the filling was more substantial than Du Min had imagined. It was so dense that it felt like a simple meat pie, yet not greasy at all.
Du Min's mouth was covered in oil from eating; the freshly made, hot meat pie was more tempting than anything else.
"Master, how did you do that?"
Oh my god, she watched Wen Fan make the meat patties the whole time today. The steps were simple, and the only unusual thing was that she had never seen the method of adding rice flour dough before. But how did she manage to make the meat patties so firm yet still moist?
Wen Fan wiped the knife: "This meat pie is called Zhuangmo, and its characteristic is that the filling is thick."
The thick meat filling, combined with eggs and rice flour sheets as a binder, naturally binds the meat together. In addition, the meat inside remains tender after cooking, thus preserving the meat juices to the greatest extent.
The finished Zhuangmo (a type of steamed bun) is exceptionally large; it has a thin crust and a generous filling, making it very filling.
Wen Fan gave two pieces to Du Min, and then took the rest out to distribute while they were still warm.
Everyone in the shop ate one piece, and after they finished, Wen Fan said that he wanted to add Zhuangmo (a type of steamed bun) to the menu.
Wen's mother thought this stuff was very substantial; if anyone ordered it, they probably wouldn't be able to finish it.
Wen Fan: "It's definitely not sold like that, it's sold by weight."
She added a little butter to the zhuangmo when she made it, so you can imagine that one piece is equivalent to a bowl of rice.
Wen's father didn't understand why she let him eat something so heavy.
Wen Fan sighed: "It's because there are too many people now."
After crayfish came into season, the restaurant became incredibly popular with its crayfish and crispy pork belly stewed with green wheat rice. Now, in the city, no matter which restaurant you go to for crayfish, they will offer green wheat rice as an option.
Many street vendors even push carts selling crayfish, crispy pork belly, and braised green wheat rice.
Despite the bustling surrounding market, Wenji's customer traffic remained unaffected. On the contrary, the popularity of its green wheat rice led to an ever-growing number of people queuing up at the store.
Especially on weekdays, the customers who come to eat crayfish rice in the evening, combined with the traffic jams during school dismissal, make the already congested streets even more impassable.
A few days ago, her homeroom teacher called her over to praise her for her progress in the recent exams and to convey some of the principal's opinions.
The school is happy to see Wenji open at the school gate, after all, the previous incident with mashed potatoes had already given the school a taste of success.
Even now, many people still use the meme on Qunying Middle School's account, and even people from other provinces know that Wenji is located on the street in front of Qunying Middle School.
However, traffic problems are also an urgent issue.
Now that a graduating class of seniors has passed, the principal feels a sense of despair just thinking about the first few days of school in September.
The homeroom teacher told Wen Fan to go home and ask his parents if they could think of a way to at least shorten the queue. Before, they could at least say that the queue stretched to the end of the street, but now it's even worse, stretching to the end of the street and then turning back.
It's so congested!
When Wen Fan came back and thought about it, he realized that he still needed to introduce new products. As long as there were more new products, customers would have more choices. Crayfish were good, but the table turnover rate was too low.
Zhuangmo is much better; you can eat it in the store or take it away.
When the time comes, send out the numbers for crayfish. After that, ask the remaining people to buy something else and leave first.
Father Wen stroked his chin and looked at Master Jin. Master Jin nodded to indicate that there was no problem.
This stuff isn't difficult to make; making ten or eight a day is enough to sell.
Having decided to make Zhuangmo (a type of steamed bun), Wen Fan first served a plate of Zhuangmo to each table for the evening's private meal.
There wasn't much food; each person only got a small piece to avoid overeating and getting full.
When the steaming hot steamed buns were served, everyone at the three tables was a little dumbfounded. They thought it was too little food and too early to call it a main dish. In the end, Du Min said it was a new product and a complimentary gift, which put everyone at ease.
The steamed buns were fresh out of the oven and piping hot. The rice noodle skin inside was a little too hot to handle, but that didn't detract from the deliciousness of the meat pie.
The guests at all three tables were amazed that even a seemingly unremarkable meat pie was made so well, making them look forward to today's dishes.
"This pancake is absolutely amazing."
"Ah, I finally got to eat it! Waaah, I've been craving it for a year!"
"Who isn't? We agreed to eat here once we got ashore, but who knew there would be so many other things to do? But at least I've finally made it ashore!"
The moment Da Huang ate the meat pie, tears almost welled up in his eyes.
Since he started eating Wenji's boxed lunches at the library last year, and then Wenji became so popular that he couldn't even order takeout from them, he's finally able to eat there again!
The aroma of the meat pie made his head spin. He carefully ate it, holding the pie crust tightly, afraid that the filling would fall out.
Looking back on the past year of exam preparation, it was extremely tedious and boring. Fortunately, he and three or four other people who studied in the library last year passed the exam. This year, with the physical examination and public announcement, it's finally over.
After finishing all that, his first thought was to invite the others to come and eat at Wenji.
When it came time to fulfill the promises they made last year, the group was first shocked by the transformation of Wenji Restaurant, and then began to speculate about what dishes they would be eating that night.
Wenji, on the other hand, remains simple and hasn't raised its prices. At 100 yuan per person, one person is thinking about the braised pork they had last year, and another is thinking about the stewed beef they had last year.
Dahuang, on the other hand, was deeply missing last year's tomato and egg dish.
Wenji's tomato and egg stir-fry was so delicious that he ate tomato and egg stir-fry at countless other places afterward but never tasted that flavor again.
I wonder if this dish will be served tonight?
Du Min walked over carrying a tray.
"Stewed Meat."
The plate was placed down, revealing large, long strips of pork belly, rich in dark soy sauce. Under the light, the oil on the slices glistened as if they had their own spotlight, making one's mouth water.
Da Huang's initial anticipation for the scrambled eggs with tomatoes vanished the moment he saw the glistening oil from the braised pork belly, leaving him with nothing but thoughts of meat.
Now that Wenji has a long-term supply of high-quality pork, Wen Fan is exceptionally generous when cooking meat. Every table is filled with this braised pork belly, with alternating layers of fat and lean meat. The pork belly is pan-fried until golden brown spots appear on both sides, then stewed in a clay pot for at least an hour. Tiger-skin eggs and tiger-skin green peppers are added later, and finally the sauce is reduced over high heat.
The rich, succulent flavor of the braised pork belly became tangible the moment it entered the mouth. The thick, tender fat and the lean meat, not dry at all, made Da Huang eat with great satisfaction. Placing the braised pork belly on top of rice, if it weren't for the surrounding environment, the three of them would have felt like they were eating a boxed lunch on the rooftop of a library.
When you stir the meat and broth together, the rich aroma and succulent flavor of the meat, combined with the rice, directly evoke the most basic human sensations—a satisfying feeling from the mixture of carbohydrates, fats, sugar, and oil.
The three of them, including Da Huang, buried themselves in their food and ate voraciously, making the business guests at the two tables next to them extremely envious.
"Sigh, I used to eat just as much back in the day."
Now that I'm older, I can only be cautious when I see such large slices of meat. I no longer dare to eat those palm-sized slices of meat with my chopsticks and rice like the young people at this table.
That's what they said, but they were actually quite fast at eating.
It's not good to mix it with rice, but these slices of meat always feel like something's missing if they're not paired with a staple food.
I have a bowl of green barley rice to comfort myself, because green barley lowers blood sugar and cholesterol.
It's all gone.
Surprisingly, the juicy slices of meat and the aroma of green wheat were just as good as the rice, and even the tiger-skin eggs inside were delicious.
The rough outer skin held a lot of broth, and Wen Fan added some Chinese medicine when making the braised pork, which gave it a rich medicinal aroma.
"Hey, this dish is interesting."
In other places, once the dish is served, a waiter will stand next to you and introduce it to you, eager to tell you all the good ingredients used. But Wenji doesn't have this rule. With just a hint of medicinal and braising aroma, the braised pork belly has several tables of guests intoxicated.
At the crucial moment, Du Min served the second dish.
"Red Oil Rabbit Meat".
-----------------------
Author's Note: The second update will be posted about half an hour later, between 12:30 and 1:00 AM.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
